Kids and amateurs slugged by higher FFA fees

FFA has come under fire over plans to slug kids and amateurs extra on their registration fees.

Parents of junior soccer players will now have to pay more. Picture: Gregg Porteous

Football Federation Australia has come under fire over plans to slug kids and amateurs extra on their registration fees as the head body’s financial struggles continue following the Socceroos’ failure to qualify for the knock out stages of the World Cup finals.

The 2-0 loss to Peru in the final group match last week has had serious consequences, not only sending Australia packing from the finals but seeing FFA miss out on a $5.5 million windfall they would have received for getting to the Round of 16. It would have been on top of the $10m they already received for qualifying for Russia.

FFA is only expected to break even after taking into account spending of more than $300,000 to each squad player, the pre-tournament base in Turkey and funds used to pay for accommodation and charter flights for VIPs.

While it is understood a number of local associations around the country have yet to be told of the hike in registration fees, The Australian has seen an email circulated to A-League clubs in which FFA foreshadows the increase.

In the letter, FFA chief executive David Gallop said the extra funds would help the programs for the junior national teams.

“FFA will generate additional revenue from grassroots participants by way of an increase to the National Registration Fee (NRF) applicable to participants for the first time since 2013,” Gallop wrote. “The additional NRF income will primarily be directed towards programs for the junior national teams (under 17s and under 19s) and the Matildas.”

As it stands now, juniors are charged $12.60 each by the FFA while adults have to pay $25.

Under the new structure, the fee for juniors will rise to $14 and to $33 for adults.

That is on top of the club’s registration fee which can run from more than $200 for an under-6s player to $500 for an adult.

The news has not been well received. Many parents, especially those with two, three or more kids in the family, have long been up in arms over the high cost of registrations to play the game.

The registrations will help the bottom line for FFA, who also revealed they are budgeting “for a modest $1 million profit for the FY2019”.

Football NSW, which oversees the largest junior football set-up in the country, is understood to have paid close to $3 million last season to FFA from the fees generated by their players.

Ian Holmes, chief executive of the Canterbury District Football Association, said he was stunned by FFA’s decision. CDFA contribute around $250,000 a year to the FFA through the fee collection.

“I don’t call it the National Registration Fee, I call it the Participation Tax,” Holmes told The Australian yesterday. “One thing is self evident, FFA have an underperforming bloated bureaucracy which is not sustainable. Taxing junior and amateur participants will be a clear sign of failure on the part of the FFA, which in its present form is an undemocratic entity controlled by a few people.”

Holmes, who was general manager of Soccer Australia from 1999 to 2002 (the organisation was disbanded and rebranded as FFA in 2003), said many other local associations would be unhappy with the situation. I can tell you, it won’t be well received,” he added. “Many will be wondering how it has come to this. We are entitled to know where all the money has gone and where it is going. As it stands now, we get scant information from the financials. Everything needs to be itemised from the expenditure and income from the Socceroos, to the Matildas all the way down the line to the junior representative sides.”

FFA said the decision to increase the fees “wasn’t taken lightly”. The head body says it cut $5m from central costs last season and will cut another $1.6m this season.

“Football in Australia has a big agenda. We’re the biggest participation sport by a country mile and we have ambitious plans for the A-League and the W-League,” a spokesman told The Australian.

“And as we have just seen in Russia, we want to be able to compete more effectively in the men’s and women’s World Cups by identifying talent in our grassroots clubs and nurturing that talent to be the best it can be.

“But football also faces some challenges. Our game doesn’t yet generate the massive revenues from broadcast agreements that the other major codes enjoy. That’s why we are expanding the A-League: to create a better competition that more people will want to watch. In the meantime, we continue to rely on funding from a range of sources to keep building the game.”

Holmes added that the money his association was forced to collect could be better used by his association.